The Boston Lead Garden pilot project
what is a yard for?
The Boston Lead Garden pilot project is a community-based study around the lead stabilizing potential of common garden plants, with the hopes of branching an alternative form of gardening practice.
Motivated by the potential for phytoremediation in urban environments, this project proposes local lead phytostabilization as a new everyday gardening practice and potential act of care: sequestering lead in my garden means that lead does not have the opportunity to circulate through my community through soil erosion, dust particle movement, or otherwise.
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We built a network of Boston-area residents whose yards exhibit a range of lead contamination. Eleven “Lead Garden” families across the neighborhood network are helping us study the phytostabilization capacity of five common Massachusetts-native or naturalized perennial plant species.
Pointing toward a new practice of attending to the cultural consequences of industrial activity as stored in our urban soils, the ultimate goal of the Boston Lead Gardens initiative is to develop a research project that is a joint process of community building and knowledge production.
Do PLANTS HOLD LEAD IN THEIR ROOTS?
We are testing five common perennial species either native to or naturalized to the area known as Boston, Massachusetts
Yarrow
Achillea millefolium
Butterfly Milkweed
Asclepias tuberosa
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Purple Coneflower
Echinacea purpurea
Dandelion
Taraxacum officinale
Red Clover
Trifolium pratense
Each bed contains five individuals of the five test species.
Each garden contains two beds:
one with a compost amendment and one without.
